Taking an aggressive stand on the incidents of heckling at functions attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Congress-ruled states, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Wednesday said he would not attend Thursday’s function in Nagpur.
Modi will perform the bhumi-pujan of a Metro project in Nagpur, Maharashtra's second capital, on Thursday. At a function in Solapur on Saturday, where the prime minister inaugurated four-laned National Highway Number 9, Chavan had to stop speaking midway as alleged Bharatiya Janata Party supporters started chanting Modi's name.
"What happened at Solapur was unfortunate," Chavan told reporters after the state cabinet meeting. "We have taken a decision to skip the function in Nagpur," he said.
"The federal structure of the country has been undermined at the programmes in Congress-ruled states where the PM was present recently," he said.
Earlier in the day, the state Congress said it would not tolerate such incidents in future.
"The suspicion that Modi has dictator's mentality is now coming true," Maharashtra Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said, pointing out that Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda faced similar situation at PM's function recently.
Meanwhile, reacting to Chavan's announcement, BJP leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council Vinod Tawde requested the chief minister to attend the programme at Nagpur as the protocol demands.
